This morning I continue with the "King's Touch" tokens and their
mysterious connections to Jamestown and other native and colonial Virginia
sites.
The text is a draft of a book chapter I am working on. I pick up the
trail were we left at the beginning of February.
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| Out of the Ground at Jamestown. What is it? |
The Touch Pieces
were made of gold and were valuable. The bestowal was akin to giving a penny in
alms to the poor, as this represented a daily wage. In contrast, the gold Touch
Pieces were initially valued at six shillings and eight pence (128 pence in
all); this was the fee charged by physicians. Like the silver penny, the Touch
Piece was proportional in value to the need that it satisfied.
The gold Angel
coin, introduced in 1470, was chosen for use in the touch ceremony. It was
named for the obverse depiction of Michael the Archangel slaying the evil
dragon. In this guise, I suppose the dragon was the illness. The reverse showed
the royal ship of state, representing the monarchy. The Angel was holed and
strung with a white ribbon. As such, we have the most direct affirmation for
the talismanic use of an English coin. In addition, it use was sanctioned by
the head of the Anglican Church (the King) – quite ironic, don’t you think?
In order to
reduce fraudulent claims, the king’s surgeon screened the applicants to insure
that each complaint of illness was legitimate. For those deemed worthy, a
copper token was provided as a ticket of admission to the divine service. When
the use of tickets was initiated is not known, but records from the Tower Mint indicate
that an order to produce copper tickets was recorded in 1635. Perhaps this is
why the British Museum interpreted Ferguson’s find as those of Charles I.
There are references of King’s Touch tickets having been produced on contract by the Freemasons before 1635, but none of these pieces have been identified. One candidate is a copper token described in the 1916 edition of the British Journal of Numismatics. The piece shows a hand from heaven hovering over four persons on the obverse, whereas the reverse depicts the linking of a rose and thistle linked beneath a crown. This reverse design is similar to the pieces found at Piscataway.
